THE CULTURE OF THE SHANG DYNASTY 



By James M. Menzies 



THE PERIOD 



The Shang Dynasty is the name given by Chinese historians to 

 that line of kings which preceded the Chou.^ According to the west- 

 ern equivalents of the dates calculated by Ssii-ma Ch'ien, the author 

 of the Shih Chi or " Historical Record," the Shang Dynasty lasted 

 from 1766 B. C. to 1122 B. C, or, in other words, for 644 years 

 beginning some 12 centuries before Confucius. These traditional 

 calculations are, however, probably incorrect, and I have provision- 

 ally adopted two statements made in the ancient " Bamboo Books," 

 excavated about the year 281 A. D. and dating from the fourth or 

 third century B. C. These state that " from the founding of the 

 Shang Dynasty by Ch'eng T'ang until its destruction by the Chou 

 people was a period of 496 years " ; and that " from the time of the 

 moving of the capital by P'an Keng to the present Waste of Yin 

 until the end of the dynasty, 273 years elapsed." According to the 

 " orthodox " dating of the overthrow of the Shang Dynasty, 1122 

 B. C. (although some would place it as late as 1050 B. C), its found- 

 ing would haA^e occurred in 1618 B. C, and the movement of its 

 capital, just mentioned, in 1395 B. C. 



In any case, the Shang period corresponds to that of the Late 

 Bronze Age in the Near East. Within it fall the reigns of the 

 religious reformer Akhenaton and his son-in-law Tutankhamon in 

 Egypt; the occupation of Canaan by the HebrcAvs; the Minoan Pe- 

 riod in Crete; and the Heroic Age in Greece. During its course 

 Babylonia was under the sway of the Kassites; and it was perhaps 

 then that the Aryan invasion of India took place. This historical 

 background will aid us to correlate the Shang period in China with 

 the better known history of the Occident. 



THE SOURCES 



Let us see now upon what evidence an appraisal of the culture of 

 the Shang Dynasty must be based. Our principal and most author- 



1 Lecture delivered before the North Cliiua Union Language School, Pelping, China, 

 on Feb. G. 1931. 



*The title which we translate as "emperor" was not assumed by the rulers of China 

 until 221 B. C. Before that date they are properly called kings. 



549 



